Shortage of nursing educators affect admissions
By ELIZABETH BEHRMAN, Alligator Contributing Writer
Due to a shortage of nursing faculty and available clinical facilities, nursing programs throughout the state have been rejecting eligible applicants.
More than 10,000 qualified applicants for associate and bachelor's nursing degrees in the state of Florida were rejected last year. UF's program accepted 187 of the 303 qualified applicants.
Pre-nursing sophomore Madeline Zecman said she realizes how difficult it will be for her to get accepted into the program.
"Nursing is the only thing I want to do, and if I don't get into the UF nursing school then I'm going to have to transfer," she said.
Tracy Wright, spokeswoman of Alumni Affairs for the UF College of Nursing, said that the cutbacks are due primarily to the lack of nurse educators.
"As faculty members retire, what we're seeing is our existing faculty is taking on a greater teaching load," Wright said.
According to Wright, fewer nurses are willing to go into teaching because they can earn larger salaries working in the field, especially if they have the advanced graduate degrees required to teach.
Wright said that the teaching shortage has a cyclical effect upon the entire nursing field.
"If you don't have the faculty to teach the students who become the nurses, it's going to add to the nursing shortage," she said. "It's going to affect everyone."
The faculty shortage isn't the only factor contributing to UF's acceptance of hopeful nursing students.
"In some parts of the state the issue is not so much a faculty one as it is clinical capacity," said Mary Lou Brunell, executive director of the Florida Center for Nursing.
Brunell said every nursing class has a clinical component where students get hands-on experience working in hospitals and doctors' offices.
She said the Florida Center for Nursing is working on replacing part of the clinical components of the courses with simulation. The federal government has been persuaded to put forward some funds for scholarships, and some nurses have lobbied state legislatures for better salaries.
Zecman said she expects a difficult road ahead of her.
"All of us realize how difficult it's gonna be," she said, "and it's kind of just looming over everyone's head right now."
